Toronto Tempo guard Marina Mabrey is continuing to evolve as a player in her eighth year in the WNBA, proving she can lead a franchise at an all-star level.
Selected by the Tempo in the expansion draft, Mabrey will cap a memorable first half of the season, which included tying the WNBA’s single-game scoring record when she dropped 53 points against the LA Sparks on June 25, by representing the franchise at the all-star game in Chicago on Saturday.
Technically, Mabrey ended up being the first WNBA player to sign a million-dollar contract under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement. So far, she’s played up to expectations.
“I think it’s been a long time coming,” Mabrey told TSN of her season. “I’ve put in a lot of work over the years. I played different roles in the league. I don’t know that I’ve had a green light like this in a long time.”
Mabrey’s expanded role with the Tempo comes with the territory of her contract. After a season and a half with the Connecticut Sun, she was Toronto’s sole unrestricted free agent choice in the expansion draft, allowing the team to place a franchise player tag on Mabrey. She ended up signing a two-year deal worth $2.4 million.
It’s a jump from the $210,000 she made with the Connecticut Sun in 2025, where she was traded midseason from the Chicago Sky in 2024 to help the Sun make a playoff push. Playing behind stars like Alyssa Thomas, Mabrey’s role was mostly to shoot threes and follow her teammates’ lead.
In 2025, she played more of a leadership role on a rebuilding team, but her new role as the Tempo’s No. 1 option is still a jump from what she was doing with the Sun last season.
“I knew that Connecticut might go a different direction,” Mabrey, 29, said of being unprotected in the expansion draft. “I felt it, and I’m never going to fight with anybody. You’re okay to have what you think of me as a player, but I have what I think of me as a player. If those things don’t align, I’m going to go and find somewhere that aligns with me.”
Known for her fiery personality and passionate on-court presence, Mabrey has put extensive work in over the past few months to try and harness those emotions in better ways. That spirit goes all the way back to her college days at Notre Dame, where she was a big part of the program’s 2018 National Championship run.
“When I looked at her in high school, I saw somebody who could shoot and had a scorer’s mentality, and she didn’t care if she missed the cup,” Mabrey’s college coach, Muffet McGraw, told TSN. “She was going to keep on, keep on fighting. She never quit.
“She would get mad if somebody scored on her, and she hated to lose. She was a real competitor.”
Mabrey, who was born and raised in New Jersey, is the middle child of five siblings. Her older sister, Michaela, played and coached at Notre Dame, while her younger sister, Dara, participated in Tempo training camp before the 2026 WNBA season. Mabrey says her no-quit attitude comes from her upbringing.
“[I get that from] my family, I have four siblings,” she said. “My parents were triathletes, and my parents would always say, ‘just get back up and try again, keep going. If you have a goal, you can reach it, but you can’t give up.’”
During this past Unrivaled season, where Mabrey broke the three-on-three league’s scoring record with a 47-point performance in Philadelphia, she also went viral for creating a “crash out jar.” Every time she had an outburst on the court, she had to put money in the jar, and it quickly became a running joke for fans.
But Mabrey knew that getting into trouble on the court wouldn’t help her new Tempo team, who depend on her to be on the court to win. She’s been vocal about working with an energy coach to redirect her emotions in better ways.
The results are visible when you watch her on the court, but also in videos on her own social media platforms and the Tempo’s official accounts. She has a lightness about her.
“I think what’s meant for me is coming for me, regardless,” Mabrey says. “I think I take the good with the bad and just try to enjoy the process a little bit more than I have in the years past, and I think that’s something that’s working for me.”
As of the all-star break, Mabrey is fourth overall league-wide in points per game, scoring 21.0 per game. That’s up from her 14.4 points per game in 2025, and six points per game more than her previous career high of 15.0 during her 2023 season with the Sky.
She’s first in three-pointers made per game, with 3.3 per contest, up from the 1.9 per game she was taking last season – earning her an invite to the WNBA’s three-point shooting contest at all-star weekend. It’ll be her second time competing in the contest.
“I think she’s got more freedom to operate this year, I think she’s playing the way she always could,” McGraw said when asked for her take on what has changed for Mabrey this season.
“She was always on a team with a bit more balanced scoring, and she wasn’t able to do what she’s doing right now. I think that this team, the players, the roster – they have just been really, really great teammates.”
Mabrey’s role has been even bigger over the past month and a half, as the Tempo are missing Brittney Sykes on the court due to a foot injury.
The league has taken notice of Mabrey’s rise, too. She was a recent guest on basketball legend Sue Bird’s podcast Bird’s Eye View to talk about her recent success, and many of her peers have commented on the season she is having as they’ve come to face the Tempo throughout the summer.
“Seeing her success has been a long time coming. I feel like she’s been underrated for a long time, and she’s put in a lot of work,” Dallas Wings star Arike Ogunbowale said of Mabrey’s season. “So, just to see her success this year has been great to watch. She’s one of my closest friends.”
More than just her role as the Tempo’s top-scorer this season, Mabrey has also quickly become a fan favourite in Toronto. She spends time before and after each game signing autographs, taking pictures, and meeting fans – who proudly sport chef hats that represent her nickname ‘the chef.’ She was present during the Toronto Raptors’ recent playoff run, helping hype up the crowd during home games, and billboards and ads featuring her and her teammates are plastered around the city.
“The way that she stands up for herself and for women, she’s just a really good role model for younger players,” McGraw says. “Marina doesn’t care what people think, she’s going to do the right thing. I think that takes a lot of courage, and that’s something that people really admire about her.”
What comes next in Mabrey’s evolution? In the short term, of course, it’s her first all-star game. Mabrey says she hopes to make a few shots from the special four-point line being added to the court for Saturday’s game, but also hopes to have fun and soak in the moment.
Beyond that, Mabrey has a bigger goal in mind for herself.
“Hopefully in the next few years, a championship here in Toronto,” Mabrey said. “Then just keep climbing up the ladder of the greatest players in the world.”
